The Price

tion that she had been miraculously saved from incurring the penalties dealt out to thos

have been so rash as to assume that there was no possibility of a mistake; that she had been o

e man she had seen in the bank were one and the same? Yesterday she had t

forgive his enemy, and instantly risk his life in proof of the forgiveness, could not be a desperate criminal. Conscience pointed out the alternative. A little

breakfast was over, and she had settled her aunt in the invalid's

to light his after-breakfast cigar. But he threw the match away

he said, noting the clipped ciga

e had grown daughters of his own, and Miss Farnham reminded him of the one who lived in St. Louis and took

urning the brown flood in the majestic reaches of the lower river. Down on the fore-deck the roustabouts were singing. It was some old-time plantation melody, and Charlotte could not

Charlotte, turning suddenly upon t

ies,' you mean?-oh

fe," she protested. "I do

smiled goo

er nigger to do anything else. Then, again, a man doesn't miss what he's never had. They get a plenty t

y? Surely there must be some among them who are capable of better things." She was trying desperately h

Now and then a white man drifts into

worse?" s

k of a white man that can't find somethi

nce, and she too

e's crew who has earned a better recom

ver after M'Grath last night? I didn't know t

couldn't sleep, and I had gone out to see them make

oking at her curiously from beneath the grizzle

to be when he shipped with us," he replied. The

it was going up, and it was the white man who untied the rope alone. After the boat began to swing away from the bank, he saw that the other man was hurt and went to help him. Mr. M'Grat

d the captain. "W

. He fought his way to where the white man was standing over the hurt negro and struck at him. The next thing I knew, Mr. M'Grath was overboard and right down

that

around and they were picked up. Mr. M'Grath was unco

e was sick when he came to

aughter, and she had seen man

ke," she ventured. "He doesn't look

captain wa

at distance and in the nig

ndful of obstacles in Charlotte's pat

ecause-because I thought I had seen him somewhere before. Do yo

pick them up and drop them, here and there and everywhere. This fellow's name is Gavitt-John

do you hire the crew?" asked Charlotte, t

e loading for two or three days, and

lay in the fixing of the exact time of the man Gavitt's enlistment in the B

l just when this particular man was

d on; I recollect now; it was the day we lef

he mo

wonder why his pretty passenger was cross-e

ut at the last minute, as they always do, and we were short-handed. Mac sai

very near eleven o'clock, and an hour would have given the robber time enough to disguise himself and reac

he pleaded. "I must find out, if I can-for reasons wh

to by a winsome young woman in evident distress; and while he would cheerfully have sworn that it was eleven o'clock or one o'cloc

y time after, till we cleared. But we'll find out. We'll have the fellow up here and put

tion; and for fear it might be repeated in some less evadable

came back. While there was the smallest chance that she had been mistaken, she dared not send the

one but the man himself. It was at this point that the captain's suggestion returned to strike fire like steel upon reluctant flint. Could she go to the length of questioning Gavit

ummon him; and the alternative of taking the captain into her confidence was rejected at once as being too hazardous. For the captain might not sc

tte dissembled and put on a mask of cheerfulness, keeping it on until after the evening meal and her aunt's early retiring. But when she was released, she was glad enough to go out

hat chance, the final arbiter in so many human involvements, led her quickly into the valley of decision. She heard a man's step on the steeply pitched stair le